I agree with this but what I am asking is why when someone gets stabbed there is not a huge movement to ban Knives ?

Guns are a target because of ease of access and scale of potential damage. I think there is little arguing the fact, large capacity and ease of dispensing ammunition are very attractive attributes for someone wanting to do bad things.

For example James Holmes doesn't kill 12 and injury 70 with a hunting knife- building a bomb may have blown up in his face, he would have had to remote detonate- he could have mowed down a crowd with his car I guess... but the truth is being able to rip of hundreds of rounds and fleeign the scene to do more damage is pretty easy with guns.

For people who are anti-gun, it is hard for them come to terms with the fact that such devices are not only legal, but a right in the founding documents of this country- and even after mass shooting and the highest rate of gun crime globally, we still have a pretty liberal firearm policy. "Fixers" as I call them want to cure the problem, usually with the large level of Government- its well intentioned, and in the ideal world all people would live in harmony and guns would never have been invented- but the evidence suggest a less rosey picture thoroughout history.

For me, I have just come to accept Gun Violence as a weave in the fabric of American culture. I do believe that an armed populace is a great deterrant to Tyranny- and that 99% of the guns that exist in this country never kill anyone, and are owned by reposnsible Americans who are adamant about Gun Security and Gun Safety above all else. But like I said, ease to get and easy to shoot = lots of damage... that is why they are a lighting rod.

Guns are a target because of ease of access and scale of potential damage. I think there is little arguing the fact, large capacity and ease of dispensing ammunition are very attractive attributes for someone wanting to do bad things.

For example James Holmes doesn't kill 12 and injury 70 with a hunting knife- building a bomb may have blown up in his face, he would have had to remote detonate- he could have mowed down a crowd with his car I guess... but the truth is being able to rip of hundreds of rounds and fleeign the scene to do more damage is pretty easy with guns.

For people who are anti-gun, it is hard for them come to terms with the fact that such devices are not only legal, but a right in the founding documents of this country- and even after mass shooting and the highest rate of gun crime globally, we still have a pretty liberal firearm policy. "Fixers" as I call them want to cure the problem, usually with the large level of Government- its well intentioned, and in the ideal world all people would live in harmony and guns would never have been invented- but the evidence suggest a less rosey picture thoroughout history.

For me, I have just come to accept Gun Violence as a weave in the fabric of American culture. I do believe that an armed populace is a great deterrant to Tyranny- and that 99% of the guns that exist in this country never kill anyone, and are owned by reposnsible Americans who are adamant about Gun Security and Gun Safety above all else. But like I said, ease to get and easy to shoot = lots of damage... that is why they are a lighting rod.

K so whats the difference between killing someone with a knife or a gun.

What's the difference if I smack you upside the head with an iron skillet? You can't simply just ban everything. I think the statement B-Large made is a very good argument as to why guns are targeted and knives, iron skillets and gravy spoons are not.

Here is one example I found. You are all just backing up my point. If someone shoots someone its the guns fault. But other then that it was just the foolish person.

Within the next 24 hours, an average 460 people will receive emergency room medical treatment for traffic-related pedestrian injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Within the next two hours, a pedestrian will be killed in a traffic crash.

Not just automobiles, but you can focus even more closely on alcohol-related automobile deaths. Depending on how it's scored, we lose 30-40 people a day in this country to highway deaths caused by alcohol.

That's equivalent to more than the largest mass shootings in history, happening every single day, in one country.

Now, we could institute invasive procedures on the road designed to prevent that --mandatory checkpoints, mandatory breathalyzer ignition, MUCH long sentences for DUI. Things that would impact the large majority that aren't drunk and driving.

But we manage to find perspective -- we manage to understand that in a country of 300 million, if we reported every single incident on the news, a rare occurrence can be made to seem statistically common. If they wanted to, they could make it seem like drowning is an epidemic in this country.

People manage to find balance between impingement on freedom and protection from harm -- except when they get ideologically charged about something they value as a freedom. Then the idea of trying to disarm all of North America seems like a rational thing to attempt.

Guns are a target because of ease of access and scale of potential damage. I think there is little arguing the fact, large capacity and ease of dispensing ammunition are very attractive attributes for someone wanting to do bad things.

For example James Holmes doesn't kill 12 and injury 70 with a hunting knife- building a bomb may have blown up in his face, he would have had to remote detonate- he could have mowed down a crowd with his car I guess... but the truth is being able to rip of hundreds of rounds and fleeign the scene to do more damage is pretty easy with guns.

For people who are anti-gun, it is hard for them come to terms with the fact that such devices are not only legal, but a right in the founding documents of this country- and even after mass shooting and the highest rate of gun crime globally, we still have a pretty liberal firearm policy. "Fixers" as I call them want to cure the problem, usually with the large level of Government- its well intentioned, and in the ideal world all people would live in harmony and guns would never have been invented- but the evidence suggest a less rosey picture thoroughout history.

For me, I have just come to accept Gun Violence as a weave in the fabric of American culture. I do believe that an armed populace is a great deterrant to Tyranny- and that 99% of the guns that exist in this country never kill anyone, and are owned by reposnsible Americans who are adamant about Gun Security and Gun Safety above all else. But like I said, ease to get and easy to shoot = lots of damage... that is why they are a lighting rod.

Very true......and PRECISELY WHY it was written into the Bill of Rights.

We hear over and over the number of people killed by guns but we never hear about how many lives have been saved by guns. We keep hearing how anti-gun people wanna stop law abiding citizens from getting guns but not one idea of how to keep the bad guys from getting them

I find it interesting that people assume an "assault weapon" is a machine gun. Those are illegal without very strict permits.

Agreed. People, thanks to the media, are terrified of the AR because of the way it LOOKS. That's idiocy. The .223/.556 it fires is basically a .22 round with a little more powder behind it. A shotgun is far more devastating upon impact.

Firm believer that people kill people, not guns, forks, knives, cars, etc. Hell you can choke someone out if you know what you're doing, can MMA/wrestling be regulated please.

Very true......and PRECISELY WHY it was written into the Bill of Rights.

I agree. I guess I can see the argument from both sides.

For a gun control advocate, the peaceful transfer of power over the last couple hundred years suggests less need for aggressive weapons in the hands of the populace.... Hence, legislation specific to the issue.

For a gun rights advocate, the argument is why penalize responsible arms owners, especially when the assault weapons ban has been studied long term and shown to have only incremental success in limiting fan based crime. Gun control, seems to only have minimal success.

As for the Bill of Rights, a durable document, I see the framers leaving room for changes in the intention of the 2nd... They wanted the citizens to have a right to his 1 shot loader... Did they intend to have a citizen armed with high capacity, high rate of fire weapon- that could be misused in the way they have been used today? On the flip side, did then envision smart bombs, nuclear weaponry and the capacity and scope of modern government weaponry? Lol, probably not.

I tend side on the Rights enumerated to the responsible individual, even if that means sad consrequnces to a fraction of the populace... It's a slippery slope once you begin peeling back rights and civil liberties.

I have never owned a gun, but I believe in the right to gun ownership. Most gun owners are responsible, some are not. Most drivers are responsible, some are not. You don't follow the laws driving, and the car does become a weapon and we have seen some use it as such. Most people follow the laws and do not want to harm people, some do want to hurt people. That's called reality. What needs to be examined more is why those that want to harm people want to do that regardless of their weapon of choice.

I think another issue is that 100 years ago, kids at a very young age, were taught to respect guns and how to properly use them. They used them for hunting and protection. Today's kids grow up on video games and movies where it's common place to see guns used as an aggressive instrument, not something for the good of the household. They don't get the influence of the other side. All of these combat games they fantasize about shooting people. They join the military thinking it's going to be all blazin guns and glory. Those games and movies don't show you all the problems of the troops coming back and committing suicide because of PTSD. Watched a documentary the other day and suicide for our troops coming back has gone way up since Iraq. In 2012, a suicide was committed every day by somebody who came back from Iraq. It's gone down the past few years, why, because less troops are fighting. We as a nation have to stop glorifying war and rooting hooyah for the troops and then forgetting they even exist when they come back. Our government doesn't even treat them correctly. They get depression and anxiety meds instead of good counseling. It's faster and cheaper to just throw pills at them then send them to counseling for a few years. Many of the Iraq vets who were on the show said they've been put on as many as 4 different depression and anxiety meds all at once. Talk about screwing up their heads, my god. Send them off to a nasty war for a few years, so they get PTSD, then when they come back, put them on some heavy mind ****ing meds and no wonder these guys were just offing themselves at such a high rate.

Agreed. People, thanks to the media, are terrified of the AR because of the way it LOOKS. That's idiocy. The .223/.556 it fires is basically a .22 round with a little more powder behind it. A shotgun is far more devastating upon impact.

That's a rather silly statement. Depending on load out, barrel, etc., a .22 short has about 100J of muzzle energy. A .22 LR has about 180J of muzzle energy. A .223/5.56 has about 1,800J of muzzle energy (10x the .22 LR, nearly 20x the short). Energy = killing power. Just because both rounds have a similar caliber does not mean they have similar ballistic performance.

A .22 can certainly kill you. A .223/5.56 has a lot better chance to kill you. Let's not pretend the .223/5.56 AR is comparable to a .22.

The thing is, a .223/5.56 does exactly what it was designed to do: provide moderate level of firepower in a platform that enables high rates of accurate fire. All weapon designs are a trade off of those two qualities.

That's a rather silly statement. Depending on load out, barrel, etc., a .22 short has about 100J of muzzle energy. A .22 LR has about 180J of muzzle energy. A .223/5.56 has about 1,800J of muzzle energy (10x the .22 LR, nearly 20x the short). Energy = killing power. Just because both rounds have a similar caliber does not mean they have similar ballistic performance.

A .22 can certainly kill you. A .223/5.56 has a lot better chance to kill you. Let's not pretend the .223/5.56 AR is comparable to a .22.

The thing is, a .223/5.56 does exactly what it was designed to do: provide moderate level of firepower in a platform that enables high rates of accurate fire. All weapon designs are a trade off of those two qualities.

Agreed. That's like saying a boulder the size of a house falling from 200 feet has the same impact as a house sized meteorite coming in at more then 30,000 MPH. Both are the same size, but one breaks some concrete and can crush a car while the other could level a a small city.

A .22 can do more damage than say a 40 caliber. Once in the body 22s can bounce around inflicting more harm while a 40 most likely flys a straight line while inside a body, limiting what it hits to one line.

A .22 can do more damage than say a 40 caliber. Once in the body 22s can bounce around inflicting more harm while a 40 most likely flys a straight line while inside a body, limiting what it hits to one line.

True. It mostly doesn't have to do with caliber, until it gets to the .50 cal size (then it just blows everything up, lol). It really has to do more with how many rounds enter a body and what they hit.

Agreed. People, thanks to the media, are terrified of the AR because of the way it LOOKS. That's idiocy. The .223/.556 it fires is basically a .22 round with a little more powder behind it. A shotgun is far more devastating upon impact.

Firm believer that people kill people, not guns, forks, knives, cars, etc. Hell you can choke someone out if you know what you're doing, can MMA/wrestling be regulated please.

My cousin kyace uscola is I mean was a MMA / UFC fighter. He is jail nom for almost killing his wife. So I'd say yes.

A .22 can do more damage than say a 40 caliber. Once in the body 22s can bounce around inflicting more harm while a 40 most likely flys a straight line while inside a body, limiting what it hits to one line.

Yep, many factors are in play.

A .22 has a higher chance of bouncing if it hits bone.

A .40S&W with a FMJ will likely pass right through you unless it hits a major bone (femur, etc.). (I've actually several times seen a 30-06 round bounce of an elk humerus or scapula).

A .40S&W with a hollow point won't pas right through you, and will deliver several times the energy to the target as a .22.

A 5.56 with a FMJ will yaw and fracture transforming from a discrete projectile into razor sharp shrapnel delivering 10x the energy of a .22 to the target.

And like Zona said, placement is key, which is why a rifle platform combined with a moderate power round is particularly useful in a military firearm (and coincidentally, for killing as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time).

For a gun control advocate, the peaceful transfer of power over the last couple hundred years suggests less need for aggressive weapons in the hands of the populace.... Hence, legislation specific to the issue.

For a gun rights advocate, the argument is why penalize responsible arms owners, especially when the assault weapons ban has been studied long term and shown to have only incremental success in limiting fan based crime. Gun control, seems to only have minimal success.

As for the Bill of Rights, a durable document, I see the framers leaving room for changes in the intention of the 2nd... They wanted the citizens to have a right to his 1 shot loader... Did they intend to have a citizen armed with high capacity, high rate of fire weapon- that could be misused in the way they have been used today? On the flip side, did then envision smart bombs, nuclear weaponry and the capacity and scope of modern government weaponry? Lol, probably not.

I tend side on the Rights enumerated to the responsible individual, even if that means sad consrequnces to a fraction of the populace... It's a slippery slope once you begin peeling back rights and civil liberties.

The 2nd Amendment protects all the other Amendments. If it goes, the rest will surely follow